Break Away

Who knows what happened. One day we were best friends, the next she was telling me that she hated me.

Well, maybe it wasn't that sudden. But we were best friends. And it seemed like the next day that she left me.

I can still remember it. I was in the courtyard…I was watching the clouds roll by, just relaxing between classes.

Then he came by.

He just wanted help with his English essay. Mr. Newberry had told him that I was the best one to ask for help with essays, even though I was a grade older than him.

We were leaning over the paper and I was marking through one of his sentences. I heard footsteps from behind me but I didn't look up. But he did, and he saw her.

"I-I'll see you later." He stood up. "I have to go…do something." And then he left, walking rather quickly. When I turned to see why he had left, it was only her-my best friend.

"Yumi Ishiyama!" she cried, her face red. "If you're going to steal him from me, then I no longer wish to know you! We were never friends!"

I was shocked. I wanted to protest, to tell her that I hardly even knew the guy; I was just helping him with his essay. But somehow my mouth wasn't working. All I could do was watch her stomp away, back to Herve and Nicolas. My best friend, Sissi Delmas, had left me. And the worst thing was the fact Ulrich was never going to go out with her. He'd go out with me before he went out with her…

The weeks after that were really hard. I hated being at home, because Mom and Dad were fighting again, but I also hated being at school, where I had no friends. I just floated through the day, wanting more than anything to leave. But, like I said, home wasn't any better.

My grades soared, because I had no friends to distract me, no social life to take away from my studying, but my heart wasn't in them. I simply worked hard because I had nothing else to do with my life.

He was the only one that would talk to me, and that was only during our sparring sessions.

But one day at lunch, my life changed forever.

I was sitting alone, as usual, when I heard someone coming. When I looked up I saw that it was him, holding his lunch tray and looking a little out of place.

But he wasn't alone. There were others there too. Of course I'd seen them around, but they were the losers. Why would I want to hang out with them when I had…Sissi. I had to swallow back tears just thinking about her.

"Hey," he smiled a little hesitantly, setting his tray down across from me. The other two boys sat down too, the one with blonde-and-purple hair winking at me.

"We thought you might like some company," he continued, absently flicking his brown hair out of his eyes.

"Thanks." My voice was soft and unsure, unused for personal purposes for many days, if not weeks.

"Oh, yeah, this is Jeremie and this is Odd. Jeremie, Odd, this is Yumi. She's a grade above us," he spoke up again, realizing that I wasn't familiar with his friends.

"Don't you normally hang out with Sissi?" The boy with purple in his hair (Odd, his name was) asked tactlessly.

"Not anymore," I replied bluntly, narrowing my eyes at him. He seemed to realize that it was a touchy subject and backed off a little, concentrating fully on his food.

After a few weeks I got to know the three boys (well, I had already known Ulrich) and their quirks. Odd flirted with every girl in sight and couldn't care less, and Jeremie was completely obsessed with computers.

But there was one thing that I didn't know about them.

I didn't know why they were always so secretive.

Like one day at breakfast Jeremie's laptop started beeping. They all made some lame excuse about working on homework and ran off, leaving me alone. Normally this would have scared me, to be left alone, but my new friends gave me a sense of confidence that I had never had when I hung out with Sissi.

I had changed a lot since Sissi left me. For one, I stopped wearing pink (not that I ever liked it in the first place) and started wearing black, more as a tribute to my lost past than anything. That and the fact that I've always liked black. It's just so…simple.

Anyway, I had become more independent. It was good for me, I guess. I also learned to expect the unexpected. That kind of happens when your three best friends are guys.

Even though I had learned to expect interesting situations, I got another huge shock when Ulrich, Odd, and Jeremie pulled me aside one day. Ulrich looked me in the eye and uttered the six words that sealed my friendship with them.

"Yumi, can you keep a secret?"